14 ms·

Hard Science About Diet

209 points by yaddayadda 12y ago

yaddayadda 12y ago
>NuSI's starting assumption, in other words, is that bad science got us into the state of confusion and ignorance we're in. Now Taubes and Attia want to see if good science can get us out. NuSI's approach to test long-standing food science assumptions.
yarou 12y ago
I think it's important to note that every individual is different. I'm surprised that gene therapy has not made any inroads into weight loss management and diabetes/hypertension prevention. In an ideal world, diet and exercise should be tailored to your genetic makeup, instead of the "one size fits all" brute force approach.
- com2kid 12y ago
  Those of us in the Keto community (who have our heads screwed on straight at least) willingly admit this. I have seen people try high fat ultra low carb diets and fail badly despite following all best practices. I have also seen the exact same diet completely turn lives around restore hope to people. There is a lot we do not know about nutrition yet. Why some people respond to certain diets and not others is one of those large unknowns.
  - beachstartup 12y ago
    what were the details of the failures? i'm doing keto right now and steadily losing weight.
    - com2kid 12y ago
      > what were the details of the failures? I had a friend who, after 3 weeks, never got over the keto flu. He didn't lose any weight, was constantly sick and ill, and just had no luck on Keto at all. It was his second time trying it, he had the same experience on his previous try as well. His Macros were spot on, and he was doing everything right, he just felt awful. I've read anecdotal reports of other people having similar problems, though since they aren't first hand I cannot personally speak as to the accuracy of their experiences.
      - AnonymousGriper 12y ago
        This seems to be one of the few failing points in keto: failing in keto-adaptation rather than getting through keto-adaptation and then failing to derive benefits medium or long-term. It would be great to have more data points on why people fail to keto-adapt (gall bladder dysfunction? other metabolic disorders?)
- tbrownaw 12y ago
  You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake. You are an ugly bag of mostly water, with mostly the same DNA as everyone else. Diet and exercise should be tailored to what actually works (as should everything else; feedback loops are awesome). You don't find out what works uniquely for you by having some expert guess based on what your DNA makes very slightly more likely, you find out by trying and seeing if and how your results differ from what's typical or what you expected.
  - gadders 12y ago
    I agree that there is some consensus on what works for exercise, but livestock breeders readily breed strains of animal to enhance he efficiency at which they convert food to weight on the hoof. If pigs or cows can vary as to how much weight they put on for the same input of food, surely humans can too?
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    Why can't we use gene therapy and proven methodologies? For example if one diet works 5% better for people with condition X use that as opposed to another diet. It's not all or nothing.
  - yarou 12y ago
    Why would an expert have to "guess" when they have piles and piles of data? I think it's 100 years too early for you to reply to me.
  - gwern 12y ago
    > You are an ugly bag of mostly water, with mostly the same DNA as everyone else. And yet, BMI is highly heritable (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=weight+OR+BMI+heritability+twin&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C21 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=weight+OR+BMI+heritabili...) so the 'mostly' is a pretty key qualifier.
    - hackinthebochs 12y ago
      The question is are you inheriting genes or memes?
dangerlibrary 12y ago
Holy crap, talk about burying the lede. There's a table at the bottom of the article that contains the tl;dr about the scientific studies referenced. All are still underway, there are no published results yet.
- droopyEyelids 12y ago
  More of a bait and switch. I had to read like 5 paragraphs before I realized I better start skimming to see when they got back to that study.
- jdminhbg 12y ago
  How is that buried? The whole article is about the process behind generating the hypotheses for the studies, the trouble in getting them funded, and how eventually a billionaire bankrolled them himself. It's not about their results, and in fact never even gives any preliminary results from any of them.
dang 12y ago
If anyone can find a sentence from the article that would make a more descriptive title, we can change it. This is one case where subtitles and the opening paragraph both fail us.
- cookingrobot 12y ago
  How about the URL: "What makes us fat"
  - dang 12y ago
    The URL does sometimes supply a good title. But in this case I fear it is too vague and baity. The distinctive thing in this article is the new efforts to test what makes us fat. Edit: I suppose "New efforts to test what makes us fat" would be a reasonable title, but I hate to do that. It's nearly always possible to find a suitable title in the article itself.
- yincrash 12y ago
  "FINALLY: HARD SCIENCE ABOUT DIET"
  - dang 12y ago
    That doesn't seem to be a sentence from the article. The idea here is to use the article's own words.
    - yincrash 12y ago
      This is the heading above the table describing the studies they are running.
      - dang 12y ago
        You're quite right. My apologies. I changed the title to that, but I fear the term "hard science" here is provocative enough to spark a tedious flamewar, as if the topic weren't enough already. So if anyone can find a more neutral description in the article, we might change it again.
clumsysmurf 12y ago
"Gardner's study stems from his previous research, which suggests a diet's effectiveness may be due to how insulin-resistant the dieter is at the outset." What if it also depends on the subject's microbiota, which would be impacted by a number of things including the (unwanted) consumption of residual antibiotics in meats. Seems like the more we find out, the more questions there are.
- dangerlibrary 12y ago
  The article mentions that they are collecting stool samples to monitor / control for this.
- zt 12y ago
  I'm actually a participant in the Gardner study -- they're testing for a ton of other factors, including microbiota.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wdewind 12y ago
This seems intellectually interesting to me but it's frustrating because I feel it takes what is a relatively simple issue and makes it needlessly complex. Yes, maybe there is some amount of optimization you can do with your diet, but the simple fact is that there is a not a single study in the history of science which has been able to demonstrate eating at a caloric deficit and gaining weight. Show me an obese person not eating significantly too much. From the practical standpoint of actually trying to lose weight/get people to lose weight, the challenges in nutrition are almost entirely around compliance (how to ensure someone sticks with the program) rather than substance (what people put in their bodies). Most people know, within reasonable terms, how to eat healthily. It may not be the most optimal way possible (perhaps keto or some other diet is), but if we spent more time studying how to teach compliance I think we'd be making a lot more progress towards stopping obesity.
- AnonymousGriper 12y ago
  "Show me an obese person not eating significantly too much." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardet-Biedl_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardet-Biedl_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayazi_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayazi_syndrome There. That was easy.
  - grecy 12y ago
    I don't think genetic disorders should be considered as they're exceptions to the rules. I stand by the statement "Show me an obese person (with no genetic conditions) that eats less energy than they use". It doesn't exist, because it's not physically possible
    - AnonymousGriper 12y ago
      I just showed you specific genetic conditions that lead to excess body fat without over-eating. You have to reckon that. Science doesn't work that way. You can't just ignore evidence that counters your hypothesis, waving your hands and saying "pah, these exceptions to the rules." On a similar note, do you think most females develop breasts because they consume more calories than they expend (v.s. males)? By your line of reasoning, you should believe that.
bollockitis 12y ago
If you haven't read either of Taubes's books, please do. I highly recommend Why We Get Fat[1]. It's a spectacular piece of scientific journalism. If that's too much for you, try one of his talks on the same topic[2]. When I first encountered the idea that we do not get fat from eating too much and that calories weren't responsible, I thought it ludicrous—the body can't disobey the laws of physics! Thermodynamics! But after seriously thinking about the idea, I realized Taubes was providing a far more complete understanding of metabolism. The human body doesn't run on calories, it runs on food. Yes, we can easily learn the caloric content of food, but that's largely irrelevant. What's important is how food affects the body, not its raw energy content. I see this misconception time and time again, especially among smart people who like to reduce the human body to merely a physical machine, often ignoring the whole biology thing. I think the hormone theory of obesity is correct and I think these studies will prove it. But even if they show otherwise, this type of research is long overdue and we all stand to benefit from the results. [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259 http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259 [2]: http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0 http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0
- ilovecomputers 12y ago
  > I see this misconception time and time again, especially among smart people who like to reduce the human body to merely a physical machine, often ignoring the whole biology thing. Like the people behind Soylent?
- grecy 12y ago
  I'm going to wholeheartedly disagree with you. I've posted here about this before - I got involved with weight watchers through my two roomates as moral support for them, and have personally seen and been involved with many hundreds of people losing many thousands of punds - and keeping it off (that was over 10 years ago). I've always thought of weight-loss like everything else we learn and do in life - start out simple and make it achievable while getting "beginner" results, then work your way up making it more and more complicated. When you're 6 and learning to count, you are not taught differentiation and complex numbers. When you're learning to surf, nobody would through you in at the world's biggest wave. When you learn a new language, you don't learn the most complicated conjugations first. Losing weight starts simply by reducing the amount of energy you're eating (calories) to a level lower than your body is using on a daily basis. I don't care if you eat raw sugar or fat, as long as you eat slightly less calories than your body is using for a prolonged period of time. (yes, you'll likely feel like shit if you eat raw sugar or fat, so I don't recommend it). Like you said, the body must obey the laws of thermodynamics. The longer you keep that up, the more weight you will lose. I genuinely believe anything else at the "beginner" stage is noise and over complication. The mere fact so many books exist on the topic, and so many "new" theories come out each year is proof that it's too complicated for beginners. Once you have some good "beginner results" and are losing weight consistently you will and start to move from morbidly obese to just obese down to a somewhat healthy range. THEN you can start making it more complicated, and start focusing on WHAT you're eating, not simply how much. It's an advanced topic that isn't required for the basics. (just like you don't need complex numbers to count the number of marbles in your bag, or almost all other functions required in a normal adult life.)
alainv 12y ago
Fascinating that the core study the article focuses on is using strictly male subjects. I thought this had been a controversial approach[1] for quite some time now - yet they still claim the study's main goal is "doing it right." [1]: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/phys-ed-what-exercise-science-doesnt-know-about-women/ http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/phys-ed-what-exerci...
- SoftwareMaven 12y ago
  It is controlling for variables. They are trying to determine the role of macronutrients on food partitioning and, ultimately, weight. One can argue they should have used all women instead, but I think the challenge there is women have a more varied hormonal environment due to menstruation[1], which, again, adds a variable. As I understand it, fat partitioning appears capable of change during menstruation. Of course, then we run into a problem that the results may not apply to women. Nutrition science sucks. 1. http://itsthewooo.blogspot.com/2014/08/food-reward-hypothesis-insulting-joke.html http://itsthewooo.blogspot.com/2014/08/food-reward-hypothesi...
michas 12y ago
The most suprising thing about this article was that it mentions following: "too much carbohydrates and insuline makes you fat" and "low carbo, high fat diet to rescue" as hypotesis. I have long treated it as 100% sure, proven fact. I even lost 15 pounds by following Dukan's diet. Most articles I read, mostly in health and fitness magazines they also mention this as a fact. Should we add [1990] to HN link as a warning ?
rayiner 12y ago
I think modern food marketing should get more scrutiny here. Aside from the 24/7 food ads with Photoshopped hamburgers, there are the new, more caloric, more addictive products. Starbucks, for example, has replaced the traditional American coffee and donut with a latte and pastry combo that has twice as many calories or more. You can't sell low-calorie coffee with creamer and sugar (~50 cals) for as much as you can sell a latte (~200 cals).
scarygliders 12y ago
Reading the comments so far, it's interesting how much people's ire gets raised on this topic. Also, have a look at this, originally written/published, it seems, in 1958: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/fat/index.htm http://www.ourcivilisation.com/fat/index.htm Makes for a fascinating read, and it amazes me how close it gets to what's currently being put forward now (high fat low carb == good).
geoffc 12y ago
For me the answer is simple. If I eat 2500 calories a day of vegetables, nuts, meat, eggs and fruit I have trouble finishing it all. If I eat 2500 calories with grains and sugar included I'm starving at the end of the day and it takes every ounce of will power not to eat 3000 calories. It might well be calories in, calories out but what I eat makes it dramatically harder or easier to regulate the calories in.
- learc83 12y ago
  This is true to an extent for me as well, but nuts are extremely calorie dense. I think I could easily eat more than 3k calories of nuts in a day if just ate as many as I wanted.
tokenadult 12y ago
We need new rigorously controlled experimental studies to tease out the causation patterns suggested by correlations observed in observational studies of human diet. The way to test a causal hypothesis is always, at bottom, to do a controlled experiment.[1] So we will tease out the effects of diet on different people by finding experimental volunteers and subjecting the volunteers to controlled diets, such as those planned for some of the experiments described in this interesting article. This is very difficult to do, as almost all human beings eat when they feel like eating WHAT they feel like eating. Earlier human experiments on effects of diet in the 1970s actually required the experiment subjects to live in the laboratory long-term, and to have every gram of everything they ate during the experiment measured exactly by experiment team assistants. Even at that, those experiments came up with few clear conclusions, perhaps because the experiments weren't lengthy enough or didn't include enough subjects for strong inferences. Now the experimenting begins again. Whether the currently hotly debated hypotheses about human diet win or lose, it's important to put the hypotheses to the test of a rigorous experimental study to advance human knowledge. [1] http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz
ajcarpy2005 12y ago
The body likely has ways of losing weight that are faster than simply eating itself (burning fat) Not all weight is fat Metabolic efficiency varies, including by calorie type Much of the chemical energy output in the body is involved in actually repairing or replacing, not only in expanding the volume of fat reserves or even muscle. It's all a thermodynamically-limited bunch of processes but thermodynamics is a limit rather than a driver of energy transformations. Calorie REDUCTIONS don't guarantee weight loss because obviously the body can choose to expend less energy. And if the term CALORIE DEFICIT is used, it is not justifiably used because science currently can't determine the necessary level of granularity since energy, weight, and measurable metabolic output/activity all change in response to factors other than the ones which are thermodynamically relevant, and this makes thermodynamic equations/measurement of human dieing problematic. Essentially the system is kind of a 'black box' and some of the relevant inputs and outputs in the thermodynamic equation are 'inside' that mathematical 'black-box.' Edits for spelling Oh and a slightly less vague explanation can be expounded onto the concept of energy transformation to explain why it wouldn't always correlate with a weight change...combining or dividing molecules. What if your body doesn't have enough energy to go through the processes of burning a fuel source (or the necessarily mistake or vitamins, or other nutrients...)
visarga 12y ago
What about calorie counting? I think the best way to lose some fat is to add up the sum of the calories of what you're eating, as the day goes by. In time, this will create an ability to know which foods are too rich and which are ok. Also, they allow management of appetite/hunger by allocating the rest of the calories for the rest of time. I personally found it much easier to eat on a budget of 1200 or 1400 calories a day than following a regime that forbids some kinds of foods or aims to make food less palatable. I lost 30 pounds that way and was able to keep my new weight in the following 5 years. I used an iPhone App for actual counting and calorie database lookups. Also, physical activities can be tracked and added up to the daily budget. If I walk for 2 hours, then I can have an extra meal, if I want to take it. TL;DR Calorie counting makes for mindful eating and changes habits, without suffering.
- 3pt14159 12y ago
  If you were only 30 pounds overweight then you probably didn't have the types of problems that most Americans have: metabolic disorder / obesity / diabetes. To fix this problem requires not just a reduction in calories, but a repair of the insulin levels and an increase in water soluble fibre for lipid production.
honhon 12y ago
I don't believe its necessary for all the experiments to last that long. Its possible to have shorter more controlled experiments to gain insight to health benefits of particular diets. For example... A British group of volunteers were locked in a zoo and were allowed to eat up to 5 kilos of raw fruit and vegetables per day - but only raw fruit and vegetables. "Nine volunteers, aged 36 to 49, took on the 12-day Evo Diet, consuming up to five kilos of raw fruit and veg a day." "The prescribed menu was: - safe to eat raw; - met adult human daily nutritional requirements; and - provided 2,300 calories - between the 2,000 recommended for women and 2,500 for men," "Overall, the cholesterol levels dropped 23%, an amount usually achieved only through anti-cholesterol drugs statins. The group's average blood pressure fell from a level of 140/83 - almost hypertensive - to 122/76. Though it was not intended to be a weight loss diet, they dropped 4.4kg (9.7lbs), on average." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ1dH7tJWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ1dH7tJWw http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6248975.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6248975.stm
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jrapdx3 12y ago
After 150 comments have been made, maybe 6 people will stop to read this. But I feel compelled to contribute a bit of what I've learned about obesity. I was the medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for 10 years, working with thousands of obese patients. The most important lesson is that obesity is a disease, and each obese person has a different disease. Each case requires a unique treatment approach. "Cookie-cutter" methods won't cut it. I'm convinced that obesity is the most complex disease the art and science of medicine has ever faced. I can't even begin to describe the mind-boggling complexity of the situation. A minimalist outline: factor in participation of the endocrine system (insulin resistance, role of cortisol, thyroid, reproductive hormones), the immune system products promoting obesity, as well as adverse inflammatory effects of adiposity contributing to metabolic disarray, and the brain's functional role in metabolism involving highly intertwined connections of neuronal circuits regulating metabolism and sleep/circadian rhythms. And so I could go on for gigabytes on these subjects, even before citing the enormous list of references. Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are the solutions to obesity. Small needles, huge haystack. Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are the solutions to obesity. Small needle, huge haystack. A few years ago it was mentioned at a conference that at the time over 250 human genes (and their peptide products) had been identified to play a role in obesity. Considering the multitude of known and potential gene/environment interactions, what simple "cause and effect" paradigm could we glean? So yes, many obese patients respond favorably to low CHO, high N diets. Altering PUFA intake to approximate a 1:1 intake of N3 and N6 EFA in adequate amounts is warranted. Elimination of physiologically incompatible trans-fatty acids in the diet is absolutely necessary. Mono-unsaturated or saturated fats within calorie constraints are not usually an issue. Behavioral approaches are always indicated. Just remember, each of us is different, our systems are inherently quirky, and tremendous variation is common. The above general rules are fine to start with, but be prepared, understand the "reality paradox": exceptions are the rule and not the exception.
- benjvi 12y ago
  Interesting and quite dense post - I had some trouble with the terminology so, for the other five people reading this.. CHO = carbon hydrogen oxygen (ie carbohydrates), N = nitrogen (ie proteins & purines)? This was hard to figure out from google alone but seems to make sense.. Also, PUFA = Polyunsaturated Faty Acids, EFA = Essential Fatty Acids. n3/n6 are more commonly (less precisely?) known as omega 3/omega 6 fatty acids. From my personal, anecdotal experience the first intervention has been effective (and this seems to accord with the received recommendations wrt better health outcomes for those eating more vegetables and fish). But how clear are we on the outcomes of these simple and broadly applicable interventions have been made clear and concrete so far? The first goal for the science should surely be to end the debate on the proliferation "diseases of civilisation" which, to my understanding, we should be able to do by proving a difference in outcomes for these interventions and correlating them to the dietary shifts of the last 30 years
scotty79 12y ago
I read some time ago that there are only three dietary advices for general population backed by science: 1. Eat food. 2. Not too much. 3. Mostly plants. I wonder if anything changed since then.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  Also what about non processed food ? I react very differently to raw vegies from anything with additional stuff (even simple sauce). It turns the food into a pleasure instead of a need and the additives sugarcoat-trick my brain into eating more.
  - orasis 12y ago
    The above is from Michael Pollan. The "Eat Food" refers to eat real food that is identifiable as such. Basically if it has over 4 ingredients listed on the label, its probably not "real food".
Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
I have a hard time believing the new theories that fat is not that bad and sugar is the evil. I used to have a diet with plenty of beef and pork meat. Then I went to live for a couple of months in Singapore, and there I ate noodles. LOADS of them, because I loved them. The result was that I lost a lot of weight. In my experience what gets me fat is meat, and what makes me lose weight is eating less meat and more pasta and rice. But I suppose it varies per person.
- 3pt14159 12y ago
  It isn't glucose or lactose that make you fat, it is the presence of fructose or sucrose in the absence of water soluble fibre that fuck up your insulin levels because you don't have the lipids to resist the shock. Beef is incredibly energy dense, and yes it can lead to weight gain, but most people have their beef with sugary tomato paste / ketchup and a side of Coca Cola. Noodles are actually very simple to make: Flour, touch of salt, and an egg. No fructose or sucrose. So of course you weren't getting fat because your insulin levels were still in check and you weren't craving too many calories per day. Also, I don't know about Singapore, but in North America sugar is added all over the place. Even something simple like BBQ sauce has more sugar per serving than something like an apple or a banana. And again, no water soluble fibre.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
    In my case I never ate much coke or ketchup, neither after nor before going to Singapore. I'm from Spain and the most typical way to have beef is together with homemade fries. I suppose the kind of carbohydrates is everything: noodles and cereal good, sucrose bad... so that makes me wonder if the studies mentioned in the article might be too US-centric. Probably many Americans could lose weight by replacing the sugary coke and ketchup with more fat, so "high fat, low carb" may be a good advice for them. But in Spain where coke and ketchup aren't so widespread (some people have them, of course, but probably not even 10% as much as in the US) most people would do better to replace their fatty beef with carbs in noodle, pasta or rice form...
tim333 12y ago
Two striking things about dieting. Firstly its a matter of calories in vs calories burnt. Stop eating and you'll lose weight so it's mostly down to your controls, conscious or unconscious. Secondly everyone starts at about 8 lbs at age 0 and ends up about 140lbs at age 18 give or take 50% and that's not down to conscious planning - the unconscious bits of the brain make kids hungry if they need food and to not eat and run around if they have too much. And the mechanisms are powerful - no kids remain at 20 lbs because they choose to. When adults get obese its seldom because they choose too but because the unconscious bit goes wonky. I think the US mostly due to sugary food and not much exercise. It's interesting if you look at the book 'French Women Don't Get Fat' that it's mostly a recipe book but her actual story was she went from France to the US for a year or so, hit the sugary snacks and piled on the pounds and then on her return her dad was horrified so she dropped the snacks and the weight went. So a mix of factors there.
- vpeters25 12y ago
  Hypothesis: "Stop eating and you'll lose weight" How do you scientifically prove this? First, you must isolate a human being in such a way you can account for every single calorie incoming and outgoing. Incoming calories are relatively easy to measure, but for outgoing you have to at least measure: - How much heat is produced by the body (how much energy is expended keeping the room at the same temperature) - How many calories did the body use to warm sweat and pee: collect every single drop of sweat and pee, measure its volume and temperature as soon as it leaves the body, compare to temperature of water ingested. - Collect every single particle of stool leaving the body, measure temperature, weight and calorie content. Only after you have a human being isolated in a way all calories in = calories out, then you can test the "Stop eating and you'll lose weight" hypothesis. Before then, anybody with such a claim is just blurting out junk science.
  - refurb 12y ago
    You know there are ways to measure metabolic rate right? I don't have the study in front of me but there was an interesting paper that shows upon caloric restriction metabolism can drop 20-30% as the body attempts to hold onto calories. I'm not sure why calories in = calories out is such a heretical statement on HN. It's a well establish fact. Of course the calories out can adapt to reduced calories in, but the fact remains, if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight.
poolcircle 12y ago
I firmly believe in the saying, "You get sick because of what's eating you and not being of what you are eating".
mcguire 12y ago
Am I missing something? Is there any actual information in this article beyond * Science in general and nutritional science specifically may or may not be sketchy (And this is news?), * There are at least three ongoing, very interesting, apparently well-designed studies exploring the topic, with an emphasis on ongoing, and * These three studies are the children of a researcher who lost weight when he changed his diet, an Enron billionaire, and Gary Taubes, a science journalist with a history of being very, very partisan. (No, really, go read Bad Science and then track down Polywater by Felix Franks---different scientific episodes, but with roughly similar hoo-ha involved; I'm talking about the style of the two discussions.

209 points by yaddayadda 12y ago

>NuSI's starting assumption, in other words, is that bad science got us into the state of confusion and ignorance we're in. Now Taubes and Attia want to see if good science can get us out. NuSI's approach to test long-standing food science assumptions.

yarou 12y ago

I think it's important to note that every individual is different. I'm surprised that gene therapy has not made any inroads into weight loss management and diabetes/hypertension prevention. In an ideal world, diet and exercise should be tailored to your genetic makeup, instead of the "one size fits all" brute force approach.

com2kid 12y ago
Those of us in the Keto community (who have our heads screwed on straight at least) willingly admit this. I have seen people try high fat ultra low carb diets and fail badly despite following all best practices. I have also seen the exact same diet completely turn lives around restore hope to people. There is a lot we do not know about nutrition yet. Why some people respond to certain diets and not others is one of those large unknowns.
- beachstartup 12y ago
  what were the details of the failures? i'm doing keto right now and steadily losing weight.
  - com2kid 12y ago
    > what were the details of the failures? I had a friend who, after 3 weeks, never got over the keto flu. He didn't lose any weight, was constantly sick and ill, and just had no luck on Keto at all. It was his second time trying it, he had the same experience on his previous try as well. His Macros were spot on, and he was doing everything right, he just felt awful. I've read anecdotal reports of other people having similar problems, though since they aren't first hand I cannot personally speak as to the accuracy of their experiences.
    - AnonymousGriper 12y ago
      This seems to be one of the few failing points in keto: failing in keto-adaptation rather than getting through keto-adaptation and then failing to derive benefits medium or long-term. It would be great to have more data points on why people fail to keto-adapt (gall bladder dysfunction? other metabolic disorders?)
tbrownaw 12y ago
You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake. You are an ugly bag of mostly water, with mostly the same DNA as everyone else. Diet and exercise should be tailored to what actually works (as should everything else; feedback loops are awesome). You don't find out what works uniquely for you by having some expert guess based on what your DNA makes very slightly more likely, you find out by trying and seeing if and how your results differ from what's typical or what you expected.
- gadders 12y ago
  I agree that there is some consensus on what works for exercise, but livestock breeders readily breed strains of animal to enhance he efficiency at which they convert food to weight on the hoof. If pigs or cows can vary as to how much weight they put on for the same input of food, surely humans can too?
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  Why can't we use gene therapy and proven methodologies? For example if one diet works 5% better for people with condition X use that as opposed to another diet. It's not all or nothing.
- yarou 12y ago
  Why would an expert have to "guess" when they have piles and piles of data? I think it's 100 years too early for you to reply to me.
- gwern 12y ago
  > You are an ugly bag of mostly water, with mostly the same DNA as everyone else. And yet, BMI is highly heritable (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=weight+OR+BMI+heritability+twin&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C21 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=weight+OR+BMI+heritabili...) so the 'mostly' is a pretty key qualifier.
  - hackinthebochs 12y ago
    The question is are you inheriting genes or memes?

dangerlibrary 12y ago

Holy crap, talk about burying the lede. There's a table at the bottom of the article that contains the tl;dr about the scientific studies referenced. All are still underway, there are no published results yet.

droopyEyelids 12y ago
More of a bait and switch. I had to read like 5 paragraphs before I realized I better start skimming to see when they got back to that study.
jdminhbg 12y ago
How is that buried? The whole article is about the process behind generating the hypotheses for the studies, the trouble in getting them funded, and how eventually a billionaire bankrolled them himself. It's not about their results, and in fact never even gives any preliminary results from any of them.

dang 12y ago

If anyone can find a sentence from the article that would make a more descriptive title, we can change it. This is one case where subtitles and the opening paragraph both fail us.

cookingrobot 12y ago
How about the URL: "What makes us fat"
- dang 12y ago
  The URL does sometimes supply a good title. But in this case I fear it is too vague and baity. The distinctive thing in this article is the new efforts to test what makes us fat. Edit: I suppose "New efforts to test what makes us fat" would be a reasonable title, but I hate to do that. It's nearly always possible to find a suitable title in the article itself.
yincrash 12y ago
"FINALLY: HARD SCIENCE ABOUT DIET"
- dang 12y ago
  That doesn't seem to be a sentence from the article. The idea here is to use the article's own words.
  - yincrash 12y ago
    This is the heading above the table describing the studies they are running.
    - dang 12y ago
      You're quite right. My apologies. I changed the title to that, but I fear the term "hard science" here is provocative enough to spark a tedious flamewar, as if the topic weren't enough already. So if anyone can find a more neutral description in the article, we might change it again.

clumsysmurf 12y ago

"Gardner's study stems from his previous research, which suggests a diet's effectiveness may be due to how insulin-resistant the dieter is at the outset." What if it also depends on the subject's microbiota, which would be impacted by a number of things including the (unwanted) consumption of residual antibiotics in meats. Seems like the more we find out, the more questions there are.

dangerlibrary 12y ago
The article mentions that they are collecting stool samples to monitor / control for this.
zt 12y ago
I'm actually a participant in the Gardner study -- they're testing for a ton of other factors, including microbiota.

deleted 12y ago

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wdewind 12y ago

This seems intellectually interesting to me but it's frustrating because I feel it takes what is a relatively simple issue and makes it needlessly complex. Yes, maybe there is some amount of optimization you can do with your diet, but the simple fact is that there is a not a single study in the history of science which has been able to demonstrate eating at a caloric deficit and gaining weight. Show me an obese person not eating significantly too much. From the practical standpoint of actually trying to lose weight/get people to lose weight, the challenges in nutrition are almost entirely around compliance (how to ensure someone sticks with the program) rather than substance (what people put in their bodies). Most people know, within reasonable terms, how to eat healthily. It may not be the most optimal way possible (perhaps keto or some other diet is), but if we spent more time studying how to teach compliance I think we'd be making a lot more progress towards stopping obesity.

AnonymousGriper 12y ago
"Show me an obese person not eating significantly too much." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardet-Biedl_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardet-Biedl_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayazi_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayazi_syndrome There. That was easy.
- grecy 12y ago
  I don't think genetic disorders should be considered as they're exceptions to the rules. I stand by the statement "Show me an obese person (with no genetic conditions) that eats less energy than they use". It doesn't exist, because it's not physically possible
  - AnonymousGriper 12y ago
    I just showed you specific genetic conditions that lead to excess body fat without over-eating. You have to reckon that. Science doesn't work that way. You can't just ignore evidence that counters your hypothesis, waving your hands and saying "pah, these exceptions to the rules." On a similar note, do you think most females develop breasts because they consume more calories than they expend (v.s. males)? By your line of reasoning, you should believe that.

bollockitis 12y ago

If you haven't read either of Taubes's books, please do. I highly recommend Why We Get Fat[1]. It's a spectacular piece of scientific journalism. If that's too much for you, try one of his talks on the same topic[2]. When I first encountered the idea that we do not get fat from eating too much and that calories weren't responsible, I thought it ludicrous—the body can't disobey the laws of physics! Thermodynamics! But after seriously thinking about the idea, I realized Taubes was providing a far more complete understanding of metabolism. The human body doesn't run on calories, it runs on food. Yes, we can easily learn the caloric content of food, but that's largely irrelevant. What's important is how food affects the body, not its raw energy content. I see this misconception time and time again, especially among smart people who like to reduce the human body to merely a physical machine, often ignoring the whole biology thing. I think the hormone theory of obesity is correct and I think these studies will prove it. But even if they show otherwise, this type of research is long overdue and we all stand to benefit from the results. [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259 http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259 [2]: http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0 http://youtu.be/ywRV3GH5io0

ilovecomputers 12y ago
> I see this misconception time and time again, especially among smart people who like to reduce the human body to merely a physical machine, often ignoring the whole biology thing. Like the people behind Soylent?
grecy 12y ago
I'm going to wholeheartedly disagree with you. I've posted here about this before - I got involved with weight watchers through my two roomates as moral support for them, and have personally seen and been involved with many hundreds of people losing many thousands of punds - and keeping it off (that was over 10 years ago). I've always thought of weight-loss like everything else we learn and do in life - start out simple and make it achievable while getting "beginner" results, then work your way up making it more and more complicated. When you're 6 and learning to count, you are not taught differentiation and complex numbers. When you're learning to surf, nobody would through you in at the world's biggest wave. When you learn a new language, you don't learn the most complicated conjugations first. Losing weight starts simply by reducing the amount of energy you're eating (calories) to a level lower than your body is using on a daily basis. I don't care if you eat raw sugar or fat, as long as you eat slightly less calories than your body is using for a prolonged period of time. (yes, you'll likely feel like shit if you eat raw sugar or fat, so I don't recommend it). Like you said, the body must obey the laws of thermodynamics. The longer you keep that up, the more weight you will lose. I genuinely believe anything else at the "beginner" stage is noise and over complication. The mere fact so many books exist on the topic, and so many "new" theories come out each year is proof that it's too complicated for beginners. Once you have some good "beginner results" and are losing weight consistently you will and start to move from morbidly obese to just obese down to a somewhat healthy range. THEN you can start making it more complicated, and start focusing on WHAT you're eating, not simply how much. It's an advanced topic that isn't required for the basics. (just like you don't need complex numbers to count the number of marbles in your bag, or almost all other functions required in a normal adult life.)

alainv 12y ago

Fascinating that the core study the article focuses on is using strictly male subjects. I thought this had been a controversial approach[1] for quite some time now - yet they still claim the study's main goal is "doing it right." [1]: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/phys-ed-what-exercise-science-doesnt-know-about-women/ http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/phys-ed-what-exerci...

SoftwareMaven 12y ago
It is controlling for variables. They are trying to determine the role of macronutrients on food partitioning and, ultimately, weight. One can argue they should have used all women instead, but I think the challenge there is women have a more varied hormonal environment due to menstruation[1], which, again, adds a variable. As I understand it, fat partitioning appears capable of change during menstruation. Of course, then we run into a problem that the results may not apply to women. Nutrition science sucks. 1. http://itsthewooo.blogspot.com/2014/08/food-reward-hypothesis-insulting-joke.html http://itsthewooo.blogspot.com/2014/08/food-reward-hypothesi...

michas 12y ago

The most suprising thing about this article was that it mentions following: "too much carbohydrates and insuline makes you fat" and "low carbo, high fat diet to rescue" as hypotesis. I have long treated it as 100% sure, proven fact. I even lost 15 pounds by following Dukan's diet. Most articles I read, mostly in health and fitness magazines they also mention this as a fact. Should we add [1990] to HN link as a warning ?

rayiner 12y ago

I think modern food marketing should get more scrutiny here. Aside from the 24/7 food ads with Photoshopped hamburgers, there are the new, more caloric, more addictive products. Starbucks, for example, has replaced the traditional American coffee and donut with a latte and pastry combo that has twice as many calories or more. You can't sell low-calorie coffee with creamer and sugar (~50 cals) for as much as you can sell a latte (~200 cals).

scarygliders 12y ago

Reading the comments so far, it's interesting how much people's ire gets raised on this topic. Also, have a look at this, originally written/published, it seems, in 1958: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/fat/index.htm http://www.ourcivilisation.com/fat/index.htm Makes for a fascinating read, and it amazes me how close it gets to what's currently being put forward now (high fat low carb == good).

geoffc 12y ago

For me the answer is simple. If I eat 2500 calories a day of vegetables, nuts, meat, eggs and fruit I have trouble finishing it all. If I eat 2500 calories with grains and sugar included I'm starving at the end of the day and it takes every ounce of will power not to eat 3000 calories. It might well be calories in, calories out but what I eat makes it dramatically harder or easier to regulate the calories in.

learc83 12y ago
This is true to an extent for me as well, but nuts are extremely calorie dense. I think I could easily eat more than 3k calories of nuts in a day if just ate as many as I wanted.

tokenadult 12y ago

We need new rigorously controlled experimental studies to tease out the causation patterns suggested by correlations observed in observational studies of human diet. The way to test a causal hypothesis is always, at bottom, to do a controlled experiment.[1] So we will tease out the effects of diet on different people by finding experimental volunteers and subjecting the volunteers to controlled diets, such as those planned for some of the experiments described in this interesting article. This is very difficult to do, as almost all human beings eat when they feel like eating WHAT they feel like eating. Earlier human experiments on effects of diet in the 1970s actually required the experiment subjects to live in the laboratory long-term, and to have every gram of everything they ate during the experiment measured exactly by experiment team assistants. Even at that, those experiments came up with few clear conclusions, perhaps because the experiments weren't lengthy enough or didn't include enough subjects for strong inferences. Now the experimenting begins again. Whether the currently hotly debated hypotheses about human diet win or lose, it's important to put the hypotheses to the test of a rigorous experimental study to advance human knowledge. [1] http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz

ajcarpy2005 12y ago

The body likely has ways of losing weight that are faster than simply eating itself (burning fat) Not all weight is fat Metabolic efficiency varies, including by calorie type Much of the chemical energy output in the body is involved in actually repairing or replacing, not only in expanding the volume of fat reserves or even muscle. It's all a thermodynamically-limited bunch of processes but thermodynamics is a limit rather than a driver of energy transformations. Calorie REDUCTIONS don't guarantee weight loss because obviously the body can choose to expend less energy. And if the term CALORIE DEFICIT is used, it is not justifiably used because science currently can't determine the necessary level of granularity since energy, weight, and measurable metabolic output/activity all change in response to factors other than the ones which are thermodynamically relevant, and this makes thermodynamic equations/measurement of human dieing problematic. Essentially the system is kind of a 'black box' and some of the relevant inputs and outputs in the thermodynamic equation are 'inside' that mathematical 'black-box.' Edits for spelling Oh and a slightly less vague explanation can be expounded onto the concept of energy transformation to explain why it wouldn't always correlate with a weight change...combining or dividing molecules. What if your body doesn't have enough energy to go through the processes of burning a fuel source (or the necessarily mistake or vitamins, or other nutrients...)

visarga 12y ago

What about calorie counting? I think the best way to lose some fat is to add up the sum of the calories of what you're eating, as the day goes by. In time, this will create an ability to know which foods are too rich and which are ok. Also, they allow management of appetite/hunger by allocating the rest of the calories for the rest of time. I personally found it much easier to eat on a budget of 1200 or 1400 calories a day than following a regime that forbids some kinds of foods or aims to make food less palatable. I lost 30 pounds that way and was able to keep my new weight in the following 5 years. I used an iPhone App for actual counting and calorie database lookups. Also, physical activities can be tracked and added up to the daily budget. If I walk for 2 hours, then I can have an extra meal, if I want to take it. TL;DR Calorie counting makes for mindful eating and changes habits, without suffering.

3pt14159 12y ago
If you were only 30 pounds overweight then you probably didn't have the types of problems that most Americans have: metabolic disorder / obesity / diabetes. To fix this problem requires not just a reduction in calories, but a repair of the insulin levels and an increase in water soluble fibre for lipid production.

honhon 12y ago

I don't believe its necessary for all the experiments to last that long. Its possible to have shorter more controlled experiments to gain insight to health benefits of particular diets. For example... A British group of volunteers were locked in a zoo and were allowed to eat up to 5 kilos of raw fruit and vegetables per day - but only raw fruit and vegetables. "Nine volunteers, aged 36 to 49, took on the 12-day Evo Diet, consuming up to five kilos of raw fruit and veg a day." "The prescribed menu was: - safe to eat raw; - met adult human daily nutritional requirements; and - provided 2,300 calories - between the 2,000 recommended for women and 2,500 for men," "Overall, the cholesterol levels dropped 23%, an amount usually achieved only through anti-cholesterol drugs statins. The group's average blood pressure fell from a level of 140/83 - almost hypertensive - to 122/76. Though it was not intended to be a weight loss diet, they dropped 4.4kg (9.7lbs), on average." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ1dH7tJWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ1dH7tJWw http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6248975.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6248975.stm

deleted 12y ago

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jrapdx3 12y ago

After 150 comments have been made, maybe 6 people will stop to read this. But I feel compelled to contribute a bit of what I've learned about obesity. I was the medical director of an obesity treatment clinic for 10 years, working with thousands of obese patients. The most important lesson is that obesity is a disease, and each obese person has a different disease. Each case requires a unique treatment approach. "Cookie-cutter" methods won't cut it. I'm convinced that obesity is the most complex disease the art and science of medicine has ever faced. I can't even begin to describe the mind-boggling complexity of the situation. A minimalist outline: factor in participation of the endocrine system (insulin resistance, role of cortisol, thyroid, reproductive hormones), the immune system products promoting obesity, as well as adverse inflammatory effects of adiposity contributing to metabolic disarray, and the brain's functional role in metabolism involving highly intertwined connections of neuronal circuits regulating metabolism and sleep/circadian rhythms. And so I could go on for gigabytes on these subjects, even before citing the enormous list of references. Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are the solutions to obesity. Small needles, huge haystack. Short answer: all of these body systems (neural, endocrine, immune) are interactive. Think many:many relationship with "many"==trillions. Therein are the solutions to obesity. Small needle, huge haystack. A few years ago it was mentioned at a conference that at the time over 250 human genes (and their peptide products) had been identified to play a role in obesity. Considering the multitude of known and potential gene/environment interactions, what simple "cause and effect" paradigm could we glean? So yes, many obese patients respond favorably to low CHO, high N diets. Altering PUFA intake to approximate a 1:1 intake of N3 and N6 EFA in adequate amounts is warranted. Elimination of physiologically incompatible trans-fatty acids in the diet is absolutely necessary. Mono-unsaturated or saturated fats within calorie constraints are not usually an issue. Behavioral approaches are always indicated. Just remember, each of us is different, our systems are inherently quirky, and tremendous variation is common. The above general rules are fine to start with, but be prepared, understand the "reality paradox": exceptions are the rule and not the exception.

benjvi 12y ago
Interesting and quite dense post - I had some trouble with the terminology so, for the other five people reading this.. CHO = carbon hydrogen oxygen (ie carbohydrates), N = nitrogen (ie proteins & purines)? This was hard to figure out from google alone but seems to make sense.. Also, PUFA = Polyunsaturated Faty Acids, EFA = Essential Fatty Acids. n3/n6 are more commonly (less precisely?) known as omega 3/omega 6 fatty acids. From my personal, anecdotal experience the first intervention has been effective (and this seems to accord with the received recommendations wrt better health outcomes for those eating more vegetables and fish). But how clear are we on the outcomes of these simple and broadly applicable interventions have been made clear and concrete so far? The first goal for the science should surely be to end the debate on the proliferation "diseases of civilisation" which, to my understanding, we should be able to do by proving a difference in outcomes for these interventions and correlating them to the dietary shifts of the last 30 years

scotty79 12y ago

I read some time ago that there are only three dietary advices for general population backed by science: 1. Eat food. 2. Not too much. 3. Mostly plants. I wonder if anything changed since then.

agumonkey 12y ago
Also what about non processed food ? I react very differently to raw vegies from anything with additional stuff (even simple sauce). It turns the food into a pleasure instead of a need and the additives sugarcoat-trick my brain into eating more.
- orasis 12y ago
  The above is from Michael Pollan. The "Eat Food" refers to eat real food that is identifiable as such. Basically if it has over 4 ingredients listed on the label, its probably not "real food".

Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago

I have a hard time believing the new theories that fat is not that bad and sugar is the evil. I used to have a diet with plenty of beef and pork meat. Then I went to live for a couple of months in Singapore, and there I ate noodles. LOADS of them, because I loved them. The result was that I lost a lot of weight. In my experience what gets me fat is meat, and what makes me lose weight is eating less meat and more pasta and rice. But I suppose it varies per person.

3pt14159 12y ago
It isn't glucose or lactose that make you fat, it is the presence of fructose or sucrose in the absence of water soluble fibre that fuck up your insulin levels because you don't have the lipids to resist the shock. Beef is incredibly energy dense, and yes it can lead to weight gain, but most people have their beef with sugary tomato paste / ketchup and a side of Coca Cola. Noodles are actually very simple to make: Flour, touch of salt, and an egg. No fructose or sucrose. So of course you weren't getting fat because your insulin levels were still in check and you weren't craving too many calories per day. Also, I don't know about Singapore, but in North America sugar is added all over the place. Even something simple like BBQ sauce has more sugar per serving than something like an apple or a banana. And again, no water soluble fibre.
- Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
  In my case I never ate much coke or ketchup, neither after nor before going to Singapore. I'm from Spain and the most typical way to have beef is together with homemade fries. I suppose the kind of carbohydrates is everything: noodles and cereal good, sucrose bad... so that makes me wonder if the studies mentioned in the article might be too US-centric. Probably many Americans could lose weight by replacing the sugary coke and ketchup with more fat, so "high fat, low carb" may be a good advice for them. But in Spain where coke and ketchup aren't so widespread (some people have them, of course, but probably not even 10% as much as in the US) most people would do better to replace their fatty beef with carbs in noodle, pasta or rice form...

tim333 12y ago

Two striking things about dieting. Firstly its a matter of calories in vs calories burnt. Stop eating and you'll lose weight so it's mostly down to your controls, conscious or unconscious. Secondly everyone starts at about 8 lbs at age 0 and ends up about 140lbs at age 18 give or take 50% and that's not down to conscious planning - the unconscious bits of the brain make kids hungry if they need food and to not eat and run around if they have too much. And the mechanisms are powerful - no kids remain at 20 lbs because they choose to. When adults get obese its seldom because they choose too but because the unconscious bit goes wonky. I think the US mostly due to sugary food and not much exercise. It's interesting if you look at the book 'French Women Don't Get Fat' that it's mostly a recipe book but her actual story was she went from France to the US for a year or so, hit the sugary snacks and piled on the pounds and then on her return her dad was horrified so she dropped the snacks and the weight went. So a mix of factors there.

vpeters25 12y ago
Hypothesis: "Stop eating and you'll lose weight" How do you scientifically prove this? First, you must isolate a human being in such a way you can account for every single calorie incoming and outgoing. Incoming calories are relatively easy to measure, but for outgoing you have to at least measure: - How much heat is produced by the body (how much energy is expended keeping the room at the same temperature) - How many calories did the body use to warm sweat and pee: collect every single drop of sweat and pee, measure its volume and temperature as soon as it leaves the body, compare to temperature of water ingested. - Collect every single particle of stool leaving the body, measure temperature, weight and calorie content. Only after you have a human being isolated in a way all calories in = calories out, then you can test the "Stop eating and you'll lose weight" hypothesis. Before then, anybody with such a claim is just blurting out junk science.
- refurb 12y ago
  You know there are ways to measure metabolic rate right? I don't have the study in front of me but there was an interesting paper that shows upon caloric restriction metabolism can drop 20-30% as the body attempts to hold onto calories. I'm not sure why calories in = calories out is such a heretical statement on HN. It's a well establish fact. Of course the calories out can adapt to reduced calories in, but the fact remains, if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight.

poolcircle 12y ago

I firmly believe in the saying, "You get sick because of what's eating you and not being of what you are eating".

mcguire 12y ago

Am I missing something? Is there any actual information in this article beyond * Science in general and nutritional science specifically may or may not be sketchy (And this is news?), * There are at least three ongoing, very interesting, apparently well-designed studies exploring the topic, with an emphasis on ongoing, and * These three studies are the children of a researcher who lost weight when he changed his diet, an Enron billionaire, and Gary Taubes, a science journalist with a history of being very, very partisan. (No, really, go read Bad Science and then track down Polywater by Felix Franks---different scientific episodes, but with roughly similar hoo-ha involved; I'm talking about the style of the two discussions.